Sign Folk

Sign Painter Movie / Horn Please Double Bill

[Update: Read a review of the screenings here] I’m very excited to announce that The Sign Painter Movie is coming to London and will be screened alongside Horn Please on Wednesday, 5 February 2014 [Update: Sold Out, tickets now added for Thursday, 6 February and Friday, 7 February]. The tickets were released on Friday and […]

16 Dec 2013

Melbourne’s Ghostsigns and their Hunters

Back in March I was in Melbourne where I checked out some of the ghostsigns the city has to offer in addition to giving a talk alongside Stephen Banham at the University. Some of this was thanks to a chauffeur-driven tour by Stefan Schutt (Finding the Radio Book and Lewis & Skinner) and some of […]

13 Oct 2013

Sign Painters: The movie, the book and the resurgence

The Sign Painter Movie is now on tour with dates booked in until November, including Scotland and New Zealand for those outside the film’s USA base. I was treated to a preview screening and also got my hands on the book that accompanies the film. This was immensely exciting following my tracking of the project […]

28 Jul 2013

Faux ghostsigns, authenticity and the passage of time: Guest post from Best Dressed Signs

‘Faux’ ghostsigns are a relatively new phenomenon but are appearing with increasing frequency around the world. I invited Meredith Kasabian, of Boston’s Best Dressed Signs and The Pre-Vinylite Society, to share her thoughts given her and Josh Luke’s recent work on the example above. Several months ago, Josh and I received a request to paint […]

21 Jul 2013

Public lettering walk with Phil Baines and Catherine Dixon

Yesterday I had the pleasure of joining Phil Baines and Catherine Dixon on their latest Public Lettering walk, organised through the excellent St Bride Library events programme. As with my earlier walking tour in this part of London (Type Tour West) it started at the library but then took a different route to weave through Smithfield before […]

24 May 2013

Born and Raised from David A Smith, John Mayer and Danny Cooke

This has left me speechless. Sublime. Ridiculous. Unbelievable. Thank you to David, John and Danny for bringing the story of this piece of work to life through film. An incredible follow up to the last one.

19 May 2013

Ghost Sign Hunting: Melbourne Seminar

I am very excited to announce a forthcoming seminar in which I will be speaking alongside Stephen Banham, author of Characters and something of a typographic legend, and Stefan Schutt, curator of the Lewis and Skinner archive and author of the Finding the Radio Book blog. It will be held on the afternoon/evening of Tuesday, […]

26 Feb 2013

It’s Alive: Gilding with Ken Davis

Ken Davis – It’s Alive from Taylor Morgan on Vimeo. Hope you enjoy this short film about the gilder Ken Davis and his piece on glass for Empire 7 Studios in San Jose, California. Find more video content on Ghostsigns.

28 Nov 2012

Liverpool Ghost Signs by Caroline and Phil Bunford

Today sees the publication of the UK’s first ghostsigns book. Liverpool Ghost Signs by Caroline and Phil Bunford is “a sideways look at the city’s advertising history” and features over 150 images of fading, crumbling and disused signage. Caroline and Phil were almost single-handedly responsible for the material from Liverpool in the History of Advertising […]

15 Nov 2012

Ghostsigns from Invisible Bordeaux

Tim Pike runs the Invisible Bordeaux blog. I recently helped him find some locations in the area for a new series of posts about ghostsigns. In addition to this first blog post about ghostsigns in Bordeaux, Tim has cleverly plotted them all on a Google map which he will add to as he makes more […]

3 Nov 2012

Walking tours and talks with Frank Jump

A couple of treats next week for those residing in, or visiting, New York from Frank Jump, author of the excellent ‘Fading Ads of New York City’: 1. An Illustrated Lecture and Book Signing on the evening of Wednesday, 3rd October at the New York Society for Ethical Culture. 2. Two walking tours of New York’s fading […]

29 Sep 2012

Was Walter Kershaw “Britain’s first graffiti artist”?

This question gets some coverage on the Guardian in this article about the Rochdale-born artist who rubbed councils up the wrong way in creating his artworks in the North of England. You can learn more about the man and his work, including various global assignments, on the Walter Kershaw website [Link expired]. There is also […]

26 Sep 2012

The signpainting of Anthony Purcell

After finding this fantastic collection of Pittsburgh ghostsigns on the Steeltown Anthem blog [Link since expired] I dug a little deeper and came across another great set of photos. These, including my favourite above, celebrate the hand-painted murals and signs of Anthony Purcell. He also has his own website and this is the Steeltown Anthem home […]

15 Sep 2012

Lyndsey Smith and the signs of Bath and Lewes

The Circulating Library sign from Bath is certainly one of the most popular and regularly photographed ghostsigns in the UK [See comments on this post for some more on this sign]. However, this is the first time I’ve seen it appear in watercolour. This painting by Lyndsey Smith was the runner up in the Bath […]

5 Sep 2012

Dana Forrester, ghostsigns and classic cars

Work on my book means that I haven’t been blogging as diligently as usual so this is getting back to it. Through William Stage (author of ‘Ghost Signs‘) I became acquainted with American watercolour artist Dana Forrester. Dana is an artist who uses ghostsigns in his original works, alongside a number of other artists who […]

22 Aug 2012

Jim Power’s mosaics, a piece of New York history

‘Mosaic Man’ Jim Power profiled in this film showing his work on the Mosaic Trail, a Lower Manhattan art exhibit depicting the people and the history of the area and the city. Sadly many of his works were destroyed but he’s now on a mission to reinstate them. A bit off piste for this blog […]

6 Aug 2012

Salisbury Ghost Sign Restoration Project

The Salisbury Ghost Sign Restoration Project is an initiative of three enthusiasts in North Carolina. They have recently unveiled their first two restorations, both for Coca-Cola signs, so I thought it was time to catch up with one of the trio, Justin Dionne to find out more about the project. Can you tell me a […]

21 Jul 2012

Derek McDonald film and interview

Another signpainter profiled on film, this time Derek McDonald of Golden West Sign Arts, one of the craftsman who worked on this year’s ‘Declaration of Independence’ campaign for Jack Daniel’s. More from Derek in this extended article from Oakland North. Is it just me or do there seem to be more and more of these […]

19 Jul 2012

Dusty Signs doing it the old way in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Lovely video about Dusty Signs‘ Dan Madsen, picked up on Typedeck where there is more information and a gallery of Dan’s images. Dan also showcases his work on Flickr and there is a detailed interview with him on the Type Archive site [Link since expired].

14 Jul 2012

Sign Painters book cover painted by Ira Coyne

The Signpainter Movie project have just released this cover design for the book to accompany the film. Hand painted by Ira Coyne (featured previously here) it has certainly whetted my appetite for the planned October launch date. Visit the project blog to read more about the book launch and current activities on the film. Looking […]

12 Jul 2012

Declarations of Independence campaign from Jack Daniel’s

Today is Independence Day in the USA.  Last year, to celebrate, Jack Daniel’s worked with letter-press experts Yee-Haw Industries and the team at Colossal Media to first produce poster designs and then to scale these up into large scale pieces of hand painted advertising around New York.  The videos at the end of this post […]

4 Jul 2012

Signwriter Bruce Buckley profiled in 2007 Signcraft magazine

This article about signwriter Bruce Buckley of the Chicago Sign Company is worth a read.  (Thanks Andrew Cordani for this link to this page which led me to the article.)  More press about the Chicago Sign Company can be found on their website and here is the home page of Signcraft magazine.

3 Jul 2012

Lead lettering from Caroline’s Miscellany

Photo: Caroline Derry A fascinating new form of public lettering (at least for me) on this blog post from Caroline’s Miscellany.

26 Jun 2012

Spirit (Ouija) Board lettering from Ira Coyne

This is one of a collection of brightly coloured Ouija boards from Ira Coyne on Faythe Levine’s blog.  It appears that even spirits can swear when they want to…

20 Jun 2012